News stories by Isabel Ortiz, page 2

NEW YORK, Jul 28 (IPS) - COVID19 is devastating on older persons. The numbers are staggering, more than 80 percent of the fatalities due to coronavirus in the US and East Asia occurred among adults aged 65 and over. In Europe and Australia, the figures are even higher, 94 and 97 per cent of the deaths were persons aged 60 and over.

NEW YORK and BRUSSELS, Jun 10 (IPS) - After a period of forced silence because of the Covid-19 quarantines, citizens around the world are defying coronavirus restrictions and claiming the streets to fight for real democracy, jobs, living wages, public services, human rights and against corruption, inequality and injustice. We predict an increasing wave of protests all over the world led by different types of people defying the status quo. Unless policies change, clashes in the street are likely to become the new normal.

NEW YORK and MANILA, Apr 22 (IPS) - The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created an unprecedented human and economic crisis. Governments are taking strong actions, enforcing quarantines to reduce contagion, testing populations, building emergency intensive care units. Governments have also launched large fiscal stimulus plans to protect jobs and the economy, as well as temporary social protection programs such as income/food support, subsidies to utilities and care services.

NEW YORK and LONDON, Mar 23 (IPS) - Austerity policies pushed by international financial institutions have weakened public health systems, despite current financial support packages, condemning many people to die.

WASHINGTON DC and LONDON, Nov 25 (IPS) - As the West questions damaging austerity policies, it is becoming the new normal for the rest of the world, risking achievement of sustainable development goals. After years of austerity, a number of Eurozone countries are now considering expansionary fiscal policies. And in the UK, government spending is set to return to levels last seen in the 1970s. But austerity abounds elsewhere in the world, including in some of the poorest countries.

WASHINGTON DC, Oct 11 (IPS) - While this week Ministers of Finance and economists meet in Washington to confront global economic challenges at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings, the majority of the world population lives with austerity cuts and see their living standards deteriorating. World leaders must reverse this trend.

GENEVA, Dec 10 (IPS) - Analysis of the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) expenditure projections for 187 countries between 2005 and 2020 reveals that there have been two distinct phases of government spending patterns since the onset of the global economic crisis.